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Pickett Street on the radio
June 24, 2009 /On Tuesday Dennis and I were asked to participate on a round table discussion of the real estate market on "The Money Thing," a local talk radio show that airs on Tuesdays from 12-2pm on 1150AM (KKNW). Neither of us had ever been on the radio before, but that would never keep us from offering our opinion! :) The show is hosted by Howard Bono, a mortgage originator and owner of Old West Mortgage in Everett. We had only met Howard once before, but that meeting prompted enough thought that he asked us to come on the radio program to share our ideas with his audience. The discussion was lively, and was largely in reference to the short sale processs, what we anticipated for our local market over the next 12-18 months, and how we counsel buyers in times like these. The entire program segment is available on Howard's website, TheMoneyThing.com, but I've posted just our segment below. Thanks to Howard for having us - and thanks to Jerry Jaz for taking the time to take in-studio pics.Read more
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New home page for PickettStreet.com!
June 21, 2009 /Everybody needs a makeover from time to time, and although our website had evolved much over the past three years, the home page hadn't changed at all, and didn't accurately reflect the true scope of all the resources that we've come to provide at PickettStreet.com. Last week we unveiled a new landing page to our site that we think better reflects our team, our services, and our current real estate market. From the home page users can now go directly to a search for bank owned properties, short sale properties, and our featured new construction properties. Much like our team, our home page is now unique, resourceful, and memorable. Let us know what you think of the change in our comments! OUR NEW HOME PAGERead more
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A loan we don’t need: HUD’s curious permissions for the $8,000 tax credit as down payment
June 4, 2009 /I've tried writing an opening sentence that explains the heart of this post, and the shortest I could make it was more than 50 words, which is hella long. So let me try another tact. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allows residents (first-time homebuyers) the purchase a home before December 1st a tax-credit of $8,000. The Washington State Legislature recently approved a measure that allowed eligible residents to use the promise of this credit to secure a loan from the state government so that those funds could be used on the down-payment of home, thus enabling people that have not saved the minimum 3.5% down the opportunity to (1) become a homeowner and (2) take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit while it's available. Said measure sat in political purgatory as it seemed that the legislature (and other state legislatures that had approved the measure) may have overstepped their bounds - so the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been meeting to decide if they were going to allow homebuyers that hadn't saved the minimum down payment requirement to use state funds as a short-term loan for the down payment. So the HUD has ruled:…Read more
